Schubert

Munthe writes:

...my beloved Schubert, the greatest singer of all times whom I thank for everything. Even while I was lying week after week in the dark with little hope ever to get out of it, I used to hum to myself one after another of his songs, like the schoolboy who goes whistling through the dark forest to pretend that he is not afraid.

Schubert had never been loved by a woman and yet not more heart-rending cry of passion has ever reached our ears than his Gretchen am Spinnrade, no more touching resignation than his Mignon, no sweeter lovesong has ever been sung than his Ständchen. He was thirty-one when he died, wretchedly poor as he had lived. He who had written An die Musik had not even a piano of his own.

(Ur the CD Villa San Michele. Schubert Wolf Wagner Stenhammar, produced by Göran Alteus, 2004, Rondino Record, Bromma, www.rondinorecords.se)